Interlocking Circles
by Uncanny Cantaloupe
Summary: Welcome, one and all, to the Night Circus. Find displays here that will dazzle the mind and confuse the senses, and most of all, leave every patron satisfied.


**I wanted to write something in homage of this lovely book, so here it is; my first Night Circus piece. This might end up being a standalone, or a series of oneshots- I've noticed tentfics are rather popular. **

**Disclaimer; I do not own any part of The Night Circus**

* * *

The tent in front of you is unlike any of the other canopies you have seen in the circus; instead of a flag-tipped point, the pinstriped canvas is stretched into an elliptical dome, which undulates gently whenever the chilly November wind picks up.

Filigreed silver font announces the purpose of the tent on an ebony placard;

_The Planetarium_  
_Stars, planets, and other heavenly bodies_  
_Display opens at 10 pm_  
_Closes at dawn_

You can taste a sort of shivering excitement on the air as you reach out and slowly, hesitantly pull aside the flap of the tent. Darkness seems to stream out of the gap, coalescing around your feet in pools of murky black, with a cold blue-white glow emanating from within the enclosure.

As you take your first step into the Planetarium, the rough fabric falls from your hand and shutters the door with an echoing _whoosh_. The warm, flickering light from the crystalline bonfire in the courtyard is extinguished, and you are plunged into blackness. The smells of popcorn and caramel apples suddenly disappear and are replaced with the sharp scent of minerals, earth, and something icily metallic. The mellow chatter and bustling excitement from outside disappear, and an unnerving, yet exhilarating, feeling hits you as realization dawn:

You are completely alone.

You take a step forwards, your hands probing the empty air in front of you, and are relieved to find that the ground has not dissipated from beneath your feet. The darkness is so absolute that you cannot see your own hand in front of your face. Shivering, you take another step forwards, and are suddenly thrown into blinding golden light.

The sudden heat is astonishing after the dull mugginess of the void, and you tug at your red silk scarf, feeling the discomfort of the rise in temperature. Vaguely, you realize that this is what it must be like to stand inside the sun, but you also realize that you can only withstand this for so long.

You can feel your exposed hands heating up, and the light from the sun is so piercing that even with your eyes closed, the bright yellow sears through your eyelids. As you inhale, the smells of burning gas and melting steel fill your lungs, and you gasp as the air grows hotter and hotter and almost unbearably scalding-

And once again you are falling through the void, through no choice of your own, although you are sure that you would have roasted alive had you remained any longer. The slightly tepid air is now a welcome presence as you carefully remove your scarf and fold it, slipping it into your pocket. Stars wink frostily at you from somewhere out of reach, and you catch yourself wondering how you can be falling and yet standing still at the same time.

A floating sensation takes hold of your stomach and you gasp slightly as the wind around you picks up, whirling and tossing your hair about rather like tree branches in a hurricane. You reach your arms out wide and laugh with exhilaration, watching planets soar around you, catching glimpses of bright colours every now and again.

Here is the bright crimson terrain of Mars, burning and scalding and sending streams of glistening red sand across your face, making you blink in wonder and strain to see through the ashen veil. Here is little Mercury, blazing with reflected light as you whiz by, permeating the air around it with the tang of metal, and is that the blue-green Earth beneath you, iridescent clouds wrapping around it like a mother's embrace?

Before you can wonder out loud about all of these curiosities, your feet land with a solid _thump_, almost knocking the wind out of you (if you're even breathing. This_ is_ outer space, you know). You blink, scrubbing Martian sand out of your eyes, and then look around, taking in the pockmarked surface and dimpled, empty lakes. You are on the Moon.

Weightless, a silent giggle forces its way through your lips, and you jump as high as you can, bending your legs and propelling yourself away from the cratered surface. Gravity loses its hold on you and you soar into the air, and then begin to fall, tumbling over and over yourself to land in a mess of limbs again.

You brush the chalky dust off of your black-fabric ensemble and prepare to jump again, backing up several paces, watching your footsteps mingle with the timeless prints of other extraterrestrial visitors'. Starting with small steps, and then bounding leaps, you catapult over the rocky surface and fly, over the sleeping mountains and hollow seas, into the darkness of space itself.

Once again, you are sailing past planets, dizzyingly fast and yet slowly enough to grasp a snapshot of each one. Gentle giant Saturn, huge and shimmering beige. You have to swoop and swerve in a seemingly predestined course to avoid chunks of rock as you dip through the enormous belts of the planet.

Approaching Jupiter, you feel as though you are in a furnace. Though not as hot as the Sun, you can feel every follicle and pore on your naked face burn, and your hair streams back behind you, caught in a heat wave that is barely tolerable. Jupiter's lazy red eye winks, but before you can smile back, the behemoth is whisked away and a new orb takes its place.

Gentle Venus seems to tremble with repressed mirth as you approach her, and immediately, you are captivated by her beauty. How can one not be entranced by her opalescent, shimmering white clouds that roil over her entire surface, covering the atmosphere in eternal twilight? You instinctively draw closer, and she parts her veil for you, beckoning you towards her, laughing, teasing.

The sharp scent of sulfur brings you back to your senses, and you recoil quickly, snatching your hand back from Venus and her toxic beauty. She can ensnare another, not you. Quietly, you resume your flight among the stars and nebulae. Around you, the silent vacuum of space has been permeated by a sweet, high, siren song.

Uranus is a mystery and a challenge. From a distance, it looks like a smooth, featureless turquoise sphere spinning slowly in space, moving to its own rhythm. You dive closer, wanting to see more, but are repelled by a blast of frigid air emanating from around the solitary planet. Shivering, you pull your jacket closer around you and tighten your scarf, leaving the icy giant behind. It can wait for another day.

The siren song continues, twinkling and burbling and clear and high, echoing around the heavens as you soar towards the outer reaches of the solar system. Asteroids streak past, tails of blue and gold trailing faithfully behind them and once, you think you see Halley's Comet wave from afar.

Eager to get away from the oppressive atmosphere of Uranus, you zoom past Neptune, barely glancing at its frosty blue windstorms. Pausing at Pluto, you sigh, remembering when the little dwarf used to be a true planet. Now it rotates slowly, alone in the vast confines of only space itself, keeping company with some of the darkest moons; Charon, Nix, and Hydra, to name a few. You accelerate, not wanting to dwell on the past of the little planetoid.

Eris zooms past in a blur of reds and burning-ember oranges, and it is soon joined by Ceres, and then Haumea, and is that the elusive Oort Cloud? Space and time contract and expand and implode into one meshed dimension, and suddenly you are being stretched and pulled and squeezed every which way, stars flashing and twinkling and laughing, black holes gaping and leering, the siren song of the stars ringing loud and clear the whole time until-

You land, and grab at the first thing you can find to keep from falling over. Your fingers brush rough canvas. Cautiously opening your eyes, you blink a few times to make sure you have not gone blind. It is pitch black. It smells of metal and ashes, but also undeniably faintly of burnt caramel and hot spiced cider, a treat reserved for the late-nighters.

You hesitantly pull open the black fabric flap, and all of your senses are assaulted at once with the smells and (somehow blinding in their uniformity) black and white tents and the sounds of easy chatter and footsteps of the Night Circus. Smiling, you turn back to the black emptiness and let the flap fall shut for the next person to find, leaving the little silver-filigreed tag hang in the chilly air.

The only question left now is where to go next.

* * *

_There are pinpricks_

_In the sky_

_Like someone tried to cover a spotlight_

_With an old blue sheet_

_But it didn't quite work._

_There is a girl_

_And she is lying on the dew-soaked grass_

_Hair fanned out beneath her_

_Pants and shirt damp with midnight mist._

_She stares up at the stars_

_(those pinpricked holes)_

_And they stare back_

_Winking brightly, lazily_

_The girl stretches up one finger to touch them_

_And laughs as she brushes one_

_solitary_

_glowing_

_diamond._

_She wakes to find a bright sun_

_Gold, not silver_

_And a sky_

_Pastel, not midnight velvet  
_

_A powder blue butterfly's wing_

_She sighs._

_When she washes her hands_

_Later_

_Traces of stardust float from her fingers_

_And wash away_

_In a rush of moonbeams._


End file.
